


Secret Hearts

by RedQueenSang



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), DCU (Comics), Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Soap Opera, Social Media
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-13 17:13:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28657038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedQueenSang/pseuds/RedQueenSang
Summary: After losing Queen Consolidated, Oliver falls into a role as a long-lost half-brother on the cheesy soap opera that films in Starling City. It was supposed to be a one-off appearance but everyone loved it...and his chemistry with the show’s bad-girl Margo Hatton, played by bundle of sunshine Kara Gardner. Can a superhero be a TV star? Is the chemistry between him and Kara just onscreen? And who is the new hero working in the shadows and beating the Arrow to the busts?
Relationships: Guy Gardner/Tora Olafsdotter, Kara Danvers/Oliver Queen, Oliver Queen/Kara Zor-El
Comments: 5
Kudos: 23





	1. You Know I'm No Good

John Diggle was cautious as he walked into the bunker, unsure of what he would find. The confusing, half nonsensical call from Felicity had concerned him, but then, things between Oliver and Felicity had been awkward since their failure at a first date. They had tentatively agreed to be ‘friends,’ but they were both avoiding one another, which left him squarely in the middle. 

“Oliver?” He questioned, spotting the man working a heavy bag. “You want to tell me why I got a call from Felicity losing her mind?”

Oliver heaved a sigh and steadied the bag, shaking his head and untaping his hands. “Felicity doesn’t like the fact that I took a temp job for a couple weeks.”

“What sort of job? Because that doesn’t sound like Felicity.” John questioned, handing a bottle of water to his friend.

Oliver cracked the bottle open and drank deeply for a moment before answering. “As an actor.”

John was silent for a moment, before shaking his head. “Oliver, no. You somehow managed to escape your party boy days without a sex tape scandal. I know you’re hard up, but you’ll never get the company back if those stiffs on the board…”

“Dig!” Oliver raised his voice to cut through the sentiment. “Not that kind of actor. You remember the soap opera that the city convinced to come film in Starling after the Glades quake, so they could bring in more revenue?”

“Yeah.” Dig said after a moment. “Carly used to watch it. She probably still does.”

Oliver nodded at that, knowing that Dig still had mixed feelings about Carly. “Well, apparently it’s common knowledge online that I look like I could be related to one of the actors, even among people who don’t watch the show.” He ran a hand through his hair. “They want me for a week of shows, during the sweeps. The idea is that I’m playing the half-brother of the actor, who was killed off as a teenager, but they’re bringing him back with amnesia.” 

John laughed hard. “That sounds like a soap opera plot if I ever heard one.”

“Doesn’t it?” Oliver admitted with a grin. “At least long-lost son and brother is something I have experience with.” He shrugged slightly. “It’ll give me enough money to get a place and figure out where to go from here.”

John shook his head. “Good for you, man, but I’m still downloading it.”

Oliver actually laughed. “I have worse videos out there.” He admitted, a bit wryly. “Thanks for not trying to talk me out of it.”

“Hey, I get it.” John replied easily. “You know I’ve got your back.”

* * *

@secretheartsTV: A very special guest is on set today to start filming for #sweepsweek ! Who is the new (or is it returning?) resident of #NewAthens ?

* * *

Oliver would admit that he wasn’t the most comfortable person on the set of the soap opera. He had flashes of other news cameras and microphones shoved in his face, but this was different. He just had to recite some lines and seem tortured and reserved. 

Some changes to the script were shoved in his hand right before he went to go meet Nick Whent, who was playing his half-brother, Finn, and Thad Richmond who was playing his father, Owen; the patriarch of the Windermere family. The two were kind as they caught him up on the storyline:

He was Corvo Douglas, formerly Connor Windermere, the son of Owen’s affair with his first love, who he had been forced to break up with when Owen’s parents forced him to marry his wife, Erica. Erica had been unable to handle the existence of Connor, and both he and his mother had left town and supposedly killed in a car accident when he was thirteen. 

Owen, who had recently had a heart attack, and long-divorced from Erica, had decided to find out what had really happened, and the hunt had led him to discover Corvo, who had been raised in foster care when he survived the accident with amnesia. He was ostensibly being brought to town in order to do a paternity test and bond with his ‘family.’

Overdramatic? Sure, but he felt he could handle it, something the producer was sure to reassure him of, as he was running over the script for the fiftieth time. 

“You’ll be fine, Oliver.” The producer, Mort, reassured him. “These guys have been doing it for years. Let them help you through.”

“Right.” Oliver said, taking a deep breath. “What next?”

“Wardrobe and make-up.” Mort encouraged. “Go ahead, we’ve got some scenes with Erica and Finn to shoot.”

Wardrobe wasn’t bad, but makeup was _busy_ , and he found himself shunted to a chair without so much as a hello. He shifted uncomfortably, taking in all the exits.

“Door you came though, side door behind one of the wardrobe racks, two windows at three and five.” The woman beside him said, and he cast a look over at her. 

The blonde smiled at him. “There’s also a skylight, but it can’t open without breaking it.” 

“Oliver Queen.” He said, offering her his hand, impressed despite himself. 

“Kara Gardner.” The blonde replied, shaking his hand with a smile. “If you need an escape, just wink and I’ll run a distraction.”

Oliver found himself smiling despite himself. “How’d you even know what I was doing?”

Kara laughed. “My dad’s an ex-cop from Baltimore. When I was thirteen I was taught _repeatedly_ about finding and keeping an eye on all points of entry.” A woman approached and interrupted them by pulling Kara’s blonde hair back in a wig cap. She crossed her eyes at him, seeing his obvious confusion, and explained. “For some reason the director won’t explain, they want me wearing a wig. I’m not sure if they plan to have me playing my own twin someday, or there is going to be some crazy reveal that I’m plotting something and Margo Hatton is just an alias.”

“I can’t judge, I’m an amnesiac lovechild.” He said, holding up his hands. 

Kara laughed and he was beginning to think this wasn’t such a bad idea in the first place. After everything, it was hard to remember how to smile or that he could make people laugh. “I don’t think we have any scenes together for the first few episodes, right?”

“I’m in the scene where you’re meeting with Finn at the nightclub, but we don’t have lines together.” Kara offered. “I’m just singing in the background.”

“Too bad.” Oliver replied, watching the makeup artist attack her face. “I’ll try not to need that distraction.”

* * *

@kara_engarde: Margo is _back_! And I get to sing an Amy Winehouse classic. #secrethearts

* * *

Turns out whether or not he _needed_ a distraction, Kara was one. They ended up running the scene in the nightclub more times than all of his other scenes put together. 

The director finally approached him with one last direction. “You need to be _angry_ in this scene. Finn is trying to pay you off so that you’ll leave New Athens, and any possibility you have of finding out who you are.”

“Angry, got it.” Oliver agreed with a nod. “I can do angry.”

They ended up running the scene three more times before they decided it was good enough. When they did, the director was frustrated and Oliver was fairly certain his first day as a soap opera star was also going to be his last.


	2. You're Gonna Go Far Kid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick, Oliver, and Kara have a discussion in the green room, and then Kara and Guy have a discussion on a roof.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A link to the cover that inspired this chapter, as well as a manip of Kara in a Red Lantern outfit can be found on my tumblr.

@nick.whent.there: Man, I swear #lostthings are the theme of @secretheartsTV this #sweepsweek ! Now who took my #script ?

* * *

When Oliver returned to the set the next day he discovered that the day before hadn’t been the disaster he had thought it was. In fact, according to Mort, the test audience loved him, and the scene with Finn that had been such a slog to get through was their favorite. 

In fact, they had loved him so much that the writers had added three new scenes for him that day, including Corvo meeting Clara, the rough and tumble daughter of one of his soap-opera father’s rivals. Apparently they were hoping for some sparks to bring added drama to his eventual departure, and a reason for Clara to be against Finn and Owen when Finn succeeded in eventually driving his character away from New Athens and he returned to his life without filmmakers and scripts. He was  _ not _ cut out to have people barking directions at him, let alone the ones who slathered him in more makeup than he thought Thea  _ owned _ . 

The paycheck was nice, though. It alleviated some of the worry that he couldn’t escape, and his concerns about how he could keep picking up his bow at night. The actors seemed nice too -- his soap opera ‘family,’ of Thad and Nick checked in with him without hovering, and while he didn’t see her often, Kara always had a bright smile for him.

“Heard you’re gonna start dating the enemy, big brother.” Nick teased as he moved into the green room and fell onto one of the couches. 

“I don’t know if dating is the right word.” Oliver laughed. “Especially since I’m only here for a few weeks before you get rid of me for good.”

Nick hummed. “You know, I wouldn’t mind if you stuck around.” He admitted. “You’re good at it, and I like having someone to play Finn against. He never gets to show how messed up his mom made him against anyone else. He plays suave and debonair with everyone.”

Oliver actually had to laugh at that. “Are you kidding? I thought the director was going to throw me off the set after the scene where you kept trying to pay me off.”

Nick shook his head. “Yeah, it was a bit rough, but scenes with multiple things going on in them are always hard, and everyone struggles at first when Kara starts to sing.”

Kara, who was standing with a leg propped on the wall as she read her script with earbuds in, popped one of them out of her ear. “What about my singing?”

“You’re distracting.” Nick replied. “We want to watch you instead of saying our lines. You heading out to that audition in Metropolis?”

Kara clicked her tongue. “You change your mind about coming with me to keep me company?”

“Hell no.” Nick replied, shaking his head. “For a glasses-wearing reporter who says ‘gosh,’ like it’s the fifties, your cousin is intimidating.”

“Coward.” Kara shot back, and then heaved a sigh. “Then no, probably not.” She admitted. “Dad and Clark don’t get along, Mom does the mom thing if I don’t get a part, which makes me fear for the theatre, and you wussed out. I don’t want to go alone.”

“I could go with you.” Oliver found himself saying, before he had thought it through. “I don’t get intimidated.” He had no idea why he was offering, he just...did. 

Kara’s blue eyes went wide. “You’d do that for  _ me? _ ” She asked, unable to believe it. “Really? All the way to Metropolis?”

“It won’t be my first time in Metropolis.” Oliver said with a shrug. “QC had a Metropolis branch, and Dad used to visit. What are you auditioning for? I thought you did this full-time?”

“I do this full-time.” Kara agreed, easily. “But I went to Vandyre for theatre, I was schlepping to auditions for musicals when Mort found me, and convinced me to take a bit role as a lounge singer for a few episodes.”

“And the rest was history.” Nick agreed with a laugh. “They had zero plan for her, so they keep writing as they go. They still haven’t figured out why the wig.”

“I still say I’m going to end up playing my twin sister someday.” Kara laughed. “Anyway, there’s an audition in Metropolis, it’s a short run, so it wouldn’t really interfere, especially since they haven’t decided exactly what they’re doing with me, other than I secretly hate Finn, but play nice for my own reasons.”

“The betting pool thinks she’s going to shoot me.” Nick agreed with a laugh. “You bartending tonight, Kara?”

Kara rolled her eyes. “I’m never telling you again.” She reminded him. “You put me on YouTube in a shirt with beer on it.”

“No-one was looking at the shirt.” Nick laughed. “Kara’s dad owns a bar. I personally think Mort made Margo up for her after seeing  _ that _ more than the musical auditions.”

Oliver shook his head, completely able to believe it. “He picked me up after the internet thought we looked like we were related.”

* * *

@SCPDOfficial: #shipment has been #stolen from in front of #kordindustries . #reward offered for information leading to the recovery of the shipment: intact only.

* * *

Guy Gardner walked out onto the roof of the bar with a beer and a knowing expression. He walked to the edge and sat down next to the blonde alien. Her legs were dangling off the edge of the building, and she looked more like the lost, angry, thirteen-year-old he had helped dunk in the Blood Ocean than the fairly well-adjusted woman she had become. He knew why she was staring off into the distance, looking like she wanted to use her heat vision on something. “You know, you could go and help, kid. Be a hero.”

It said something that Kara didn’t even protest the nickname that she no longer minded out of habit. “I’m not a hero,” she scoffed, not looking at him, even as she leaned into his side slightly. “You, of all people, know how dangerous I am.”

“Your cat is more dangerous than you.” Guy said, and felt relieved that she at least chuckled a bit, even though they both knew it was likely true. “Look, I’m not saying you can or even  _ should _ be like your cousin. God knows the boy scout in blue gets on my nerves, but you can be  _ your _ kind of hero.”

Kara focused on the sounds of a fight happening somewhere nearby. “A hero is too much pressure. I’m a Red, Dad, I might have gotten the ring off, but all of that...it was  _ still me _ , and even if it wasn’t, with what my father did…”

“Hey.” Guy said sharply. “I was a Red too, kid. You were never meant for us, but you made us better. You can be whatever kind of hero  _ Kara _ wants to be. As for the old man, well fuck him. You don’t need to be a Superman clone. You don’t have to be Kara Zor-El. Hell, you’ve been Kara Gardner for nearly as long as you were Kara Zor-El.”

“You wouldn’t be angry if I was a vigilante like  _ him _ ?” Kara questioned, gesturing out at the city. “They’re trying to find an armored car.”

Guy was quiet for a moment and took a swig of his beer. “If you pick up a bow and arrow I’ll think you’re an idiot, because you can do more without it, but he seems good enough.” He tilted the bottle at her. “And Ted will buy you something pretty if you bring that shipment back for him.”\

Kara laughed at that. “So I should?”

“Go make us Reds look good, Kara.”

Kara gave him a brief hug, before she supersped out of there, and had he not been accustomed to spotting flying heroes, would have missed a Red Lantern flying into the sky. Even without the ring, she still wore it.

“You’re gonna go far, kid.” He muttered, knowing she’d hear it. “And you’ll always be my kid.”


End file.
